THE MORNINGS OF A SENSIBLE YOUTH (1967) – drama film online

Directed by: Andrei Blaier
Script: Constantin Stoiciu, Andrei Blaier
Cast: Dan Nuțu, Irina Petrescu, Ștefan Ciubotărașu, Sebastian Papaiani, Ion Caramitru, George Constantin, Octavian Cotescu, Mariana Mihuț, Carmen Galin, Elena Sereda, Mimi Enaceanu
Producer: Nicolae Codrescu
Cinematography by: Nicu Stan
Edited by: Adina Codrescu
Sound: Nicolae Ciolca
Music: Radu Șerban
Year: 1967
Category: Feature film
Genre: Drama
Duration: 94 minutes

13,002 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

After graduating from high school and failing the university entrance exam, young Vive (Dan Nuțu) leaves his parents’ home in order to find his own way in life and assert his independence.

AWARDS:

• 1967 – Gottwaldov (Czechoslovakia) – Golden Golden Crow Award for best screenplay.

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“(Andrei Blaier), a passionate filmmaker of the present.” – Călin Căliman, ” The History of Romanian Film (1897-2000)”

“The problems of the screenplay and of the film – supported by the actor’s interpretations (…) retain their general-human validity, beyond conjunctural localizations.” – Călin Căliman, ” The History of Romanian Film (1897-2000)”

“The characters are not schematic or abstract, but “viable characters, between which floats a poetry of youth, with asperities and beauties specific to the environment and age.”” – Călin Căliman, ” The History of Romanian Film (1897-2000)

“A cinematographic story about the failures of a young welder and the gradual onset, through work on the construction site, of his sense of social usefulness.” – Bujor T. Râpeanu, ” Filmed in Romania”

“The young cinema in Bucharest deserves our attention.” – Marcel Martin, “Les Lettres Françaises” (January 8-14, 1969)

“A movie of moods and details, subtly thought out, about the incompatibility between generations (a theme strictly forbidden at the time): the father unable to understand his son, the librarian who ran away from her parents who asked her “to do nothing”” – Tudor Caranfil

“A purely anti-intellectual movie”, (…) another milestone on the road to the cries of “We work, not think!” and “Death to intellectuals!” in 1990.” – Cristian Tudor Popescu, ” The Deaf Film in a Silent Romania” (Polirom, Iași, 2011)

“…we have elegantly convinced ourselves that the great construction sites represent ennobling opportunities for our youth to overcome vitellonism, inertia, routine, and the danger of failure.” – Florian Potra, “Film Chronicle”

“The destinies of the young people in the movie are glittering in their everyday lives. The signs of their small lives appear at every turn, and the question of the meaning they have to give to things hovers over this seemingly beautiful, but unreachable world – without becoming a forced thematic interrogation. We are dealing with the story of a generation for whom the sun of hope is in eclipse. Once dissolved, Vive’s crisis gives way to the empty mark of his existentialism: the driving force of the impulse, of the ineffable sought.” – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro

“At first glance, one could say that Vive’s ascent up the scaffold (higher and higher and higher – words repeated obsessively by witnesses to the accident and by the hero’s close friends) is a re-enactment of Icarus’ death, shortly after Daedalus (embodied by Cioba) has died. These two are the ones who rose from the labyrinth of the Minotar with wings of tile and wax to fly higher and higher to reach the killing rays of the sun and crash to the ground.” – Augustin Cupșa, cinepub.ro

“Those who see the movie as a critique of the intelligentsia should be reminded that Vive finds himself in a borderline situation because he flunked out of college. College graduates are idealized in this world; not only because they are more intellectually gifted, but also because they are valued and rewarded by society.” – Augustin Cupșa, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• Constantin Stoiciu, the author of the movie’s literary screenplay (later adapted by Andrei Blaier), made his debut in cinema with this movie.
• Filming took place from April 28 to August 16, 1966, in Turnu Măgurele, Teleorman County (exterior shots) and Buftea (interior shots). The cameraman Alexandru David filmed the first 15 days of the shooting, later replaced by Nicu Stan.
• Assistant director was Dimitrios Sukas and the combined shooting was done by Mircea Sterescu. Production manager was Sigismund Klein and production manager was Marin Vochin. The music was composed by Radu Șerban and performed by the Cinematography Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Popescu.
• The film was shot on black and white film and is 2700 meters long. The standard print was completed on November 26, 1966. Production costs amounted to 3 819 000 lei
• The film was watched by 1,499,502 spectators in Romanian cinemas, according to a situation of the number of spectators recorded by Romanian films from the date of premiere until December 31, 2014 compiled by the National Center of Cinematography.
• The film premiered on January 17, 1967. It was well received by film critics and young audiences, the environments and characters were appreciated as realistic as opposed to the stereotypical youth on the construction site films. At the premiere, the realism of the film was emphasized by its approach with a superior civic sense and a touch of sincerity, the director was appreciated as a neorealist filmmaker and the film was considered as the beginning of a kind of “local free-cinema”. (Călin Căliman).
• Eva Sîrbu wrote about the atmosphere during the filming in “Cinema” magazine no. 5 in May 1966: “…today Blaier is filming inside. In the site canteen. (…) The extras are mostly people from the construction site. It’s excellent for the truth of the movie. It’s terrible for the cinematography. People look into the camera. They know not to look because it’s been explained to them. But the presence to their right or left of the camera is magnetic, it attracts them, it persecutes them, it obsesses them. They know they’re not allowed, they know they’re not supposed to, and yet they go back there like sunflowers after sunflowers. They go on and on. The actors are calm. Irina Petrescu only smiles, gets up, goes up to the table where Octavian Cotescu is waiting for her, undresses her short, gives it to Cotescu, takes it back, goes to her seat, and goes to the table again. Once, twice, ten times.Octavian Cotescu must’ve been an outsider, today’s “Scânteia”. (He must be reading the paper when Mariana – Irina Petrescu – appears)”.

LINES:

• “Vive, get up, Mom, you’ll be late for the office!” – Vive’s mother (Elena Sereda)
• “You’ve become a bourgeois, sir! It’s hard to get up in the morning!” – Vive’s father (George Constantin)
• “You young people have divorced you from walking on your feet. Long live the bus!” – Vive’s father (George Constantin)
• “If you call me blonde one more time, I’ll scratch your eyes out!” – Blondie (Mariana Mihuț)
• “We fell into the half that doesn’t get into college. If we’re supposed to be part of a half, why the ones that do?” – Romache (Ion Caramitru)
• “I don’t know why, but I’m not amused by your joke today!” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “What do you young people want? You have everything.” – Vive’s father (George Constantin)
• “I have to start breaking up with myself. That’s what I have to do.” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “You mean it worked for so long and now it doesn’t?” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “You understand me because you love me. Don’t you love me?” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “I’ve never laughed in the mirror, darling!” – Romache (Ion Caramitru)
• “I’m not leaving. I don’t know why I can’t do it.” – Romache (Ion Caramitru)
• “I’m the one who was met a week ago. Absolutely the same, in fact.” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “It’s not good to be so lonely, I don’t like it… no one to take care of you…” – Waitress (Carmen Galin)
• “What’s on your mind? You have to tell me everything.” – Waitress (Carmen Galin)
• “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here on the construction site?” – Mariana (Irina Petrescu)
• “He (Dad) wants exactly what I want – which is to always do something more. To grow up, as he says.” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “I’m his only child. He was afraid there would be no one to carry his name. He was very interested in that.” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “You’re here, but less on the building site!” – Fane (Sebastian Papaiani)
• “Why did he have to die?” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “That pretty girl who’s always cheerful was looking for you. Every week she’s been looking for you.” – Vive’s mother (Elena Sereda)
• “Let us pretend to live without leaving a trace, a sign of our passage on earth…” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)
• “I fell, Fane! I fell!” – Vive (Dan Nuțu)

ARTICLES:

• The Mornings of a Sensible Youth (Andrei Blaier, 1967) – blogdefilm.ro
• The Mornings of a Sensible Youth – istoriafilmului.ro
• The Mornings of a Sensible Youth – amintiridincomunism.wordpress.ro
• Dan Nuțu, “Romania’s James Dean” – “sensible youth’s mornings” in Bucharest and the afternoons of a distracted taxi driver in New York – comentator.ro

This premiere is part of a national archive project supported by the Romanian National Film Centre.
Special thanks goes to the Romanian Filmmakers Union and to the Romanian Film Archive.

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